Detroit Red Wings forward Justin Abdelkader, a badly needed player, received a two-game suspension for his hit on Anaheim's Toni Lydman on Saturday night.
The reaction among sports columnists was mixed.
Drew Sharp of the Detroit Free Press:
The two-game suspension the NHL leveled Sunday certainly feels like an appropriate punishment, consistent with the league’s dilemma in mixing old school with the new reality.
Mitch Albom of the Detroit Free Press:
The head is attached to the body. You attack one, you’ll affect the other, and to the naked eye, at the speed of hockey, it is damn hard to know how much contact is made where or when. So Justin Abdelkader saw a play develop, charged toward Anaheim’s Toni Lydman and plowed into him for a check. Hit his body, shoulder high, knocked Lydman up and down like a land mine explosion.
John Niyo of the Detroit News:
Is it a gray area? Or is it a grey area? When it comes to drawing the line between legal hits and illegal ones, when it comes to delivering head shots and shouldering the burden of blame for head injuries, when it comes to making the calls in the heat of the moment and then relying on cooler heads to prevail later when trying to divine intent, there is never a consensus.
And amid all the angry debate less than a week into this year's playoffs, I'm more convinced than ever there never will be.
Should it be a suspension? I don't know. Was I expecting a suspension? Yes.
It is hard to tell if the hit by Abdelkader was targeting Lydman's head or not. I think that Abby intended to go shoulder-to-shoulder but the fact that he leaped off of the ice complicates things.
